Something to declare

I'm back!

Well the truth is, I never actually went away, I've just been busy with other things, a lot of other things.

I have now managed to get a bit of free time together and pick up the paint brushes once again.

Here is a run down of some of the things I have worked on in the last few months.

This first batch were completed for the Carnage City Chronicles game at Salute back in April. A load of scenery and some new SWAT miniatures to replace the old and rather clunky ones I had been using.

And then a bit of Dreadball to for the league I played in for a bit.

And then a the last of my Renegade orc miniatures a bit of a milestone as I have been painting these up in batches for years.

And most recently a new gang for CCC. This was my first experiment with GW's new contrast paints and I think it went pretty well.

Hopefully I will update this blog a little more frequently from now on.

Pointy sticks

And as hoped some of the orc upgrades have been completed .. just in time for a tournament at the weekend.

These are Renegade Miniatures orcs (not currently available sadly). In the latest Kings of War rules pack (Clash of Kings 2018) Orcs have a unit called Longax which are basically spears. Filled with renewed enthusiasm I decided to bolster my unit and paint up enough miniatures to be able to field an entire horde of the (that's 40 miniatures!).

Here are the 12 newly painted additions.

And here is the whole unit

The unit is ridiculously heavy and including movement tray, magnets etc clocks in at just under a whopping 1.25kg!

But that's not all. I also have the first regiment of orclings complete.

Unsurprisingly they weigh in at a whole lot less. I've managed to combine miniatures from 4 different manufacturers in there - GW, Foundry, Pendraken and Mantic. I have several more bases of these little chaps to paint too.


The plan is to carry on working on my orcs for now but I do have some more Wild in the Streets miniatures inbound which should be arriving any time now. We shall see if they fight their way to the front of the painting queue.

Updates are like busses

Two updates in a day - who could have predicted that?

This is a War Drum I have built for Kings of War using GW orc bits that I had lying around. I have several more on the work bench including one of the official Mantic models. This one had the honour of being painted first purely for practical reasons as it required less work to complete (the guard at the back was already part painted from the early 2000s).

I made a big push to get it ready for tonight as I have been using the unpainted model in games for for the past couple of weeks and I didn't want to go three games on the trot with unfinished models on the table.

Next up should be more orcs. I'm planning to use them at at least one upcoming tournament and want to have as many painted options available as I can.

This corrosion

As promised I have started shifting miniatures from my workbench and on to the painted pile. Here we have two gangs for Wild in the Streets from Slow Death Games, a "fun, fast and easy to play skirmish game of youth subcultures fighting in the streets".

I had fun helping to run games of WitS at Salute with the folks from Random Platypus but these are the first two of my own gangs.

Here we have the Murder Cult Girls. A vicious and fast gang who really can dish out the pain.

Also lurking in the back alleys we have the Goth Gang. At least they won't have to worry about washing out those pesky blood stains as I'm sure they won't be showing through.

And I couldn't resist a posed shot of the two gangs facing off.

I should have some more WitS gangs arriving in the mail any day now. Once I have had a chance to throw some paint at them I will be running a few games of WitS at the club.

Meanwhile, elsewhere on the workbench much work is progressing on my orcs. Hopefully I will have some to show off very soon.

Is it June already?

Wow, that's probably my longest time between updates in all the years I have been running this blog.

So what's been happening since I posted last? Well as you may have guessed - there haven't been any completed miniatures since January but that doesn't mean I have been completely idle. In that time I have painted up a quantity of modern scenery, some of which which I took with me to Salute for the Wild in  the Streets game that Random Platypus was helping out with.

Miniatures wise I have prepped a whole load of stuff and part painted a whole load of stuff. Hopefully over the coming weeks and months I will be able to reap the rewards of the work I have done and be able to show off some of the painted results.

First to escape the workbench are these chaps. More cheap plastic Tehnolog miniatures, this time 54mm undead Knights based up as KoW wights. They work out at around $1 a miniature including postage which makes up for the soft detail and general bendyness. You can get an idea of their size from the mantic zombie I have included in the photo.

The rest of the workbench is currently covered in Orcs although they might get leapfrogged by soem Wild in the Streets miniatures I also have on the go. The Orcs have been waiting for their KoW2 upgrades for years and I finally decided that it was time to get them back on to the table top once again. I have loads of little additions and unit upgrades for this army and I will see how many of them I can complete before something else piques my interest.

2018 is underway

Late 2017 saw my Kickstarted copy of DreadBall 2 arrive in the post. I opted just for the rulebook pledge this time as I still have plenty of unpainted miniatures from first time around. The new system converts a good chunk of the MVPs into team captains and makes both classes much more likely to hit the field. This spurred me on to paint up some of the characters who had been languishing in a box for years.

 I also got cracking on some of the alternate poses for the Judwan team. The chaps in red will be available as transfers for other teams.

I've also made a start on some of my other Dreadball miniatures. I have alternate poses left to do for the Veermyn, Marauders and Forge Fathers and entire expanded teams for Nameless, Zees, Tetratons and Astereans ... and a load of MVPs and giants too. I'm hopeful that the game will take off at the local club giving me more incentice to get painting.

The Scale of the Problem (2018 edition)

As is tradition, here is a glimpse of what still remains in the lead/plastic pile

28mm Scale Projects

Orcs
System: KoW
Status: Lots of figures painted, many more in the lead pile
Comments: No painting progress during 2017 but I did at least organise some stuff for the painting queue. Some extra purchases.

Goblins
System: KoW
Status: Lots of figures painted, the lead pile is now considerably diminished
Comments: 2017 saw a very minor expansion to my goblin army. The lead pile remains at about 60-80 miniatures strong
 
Kingdoms of Men/Basileans
System: KoW
Status: 18 knights started, about 100+ more models unpainted.
Comments: No painting progress during 2017. All set for whenever I feel up to taking this project on.

Dwarfs
System: KoW
Status: 80% unpainted, about 150-250 models in total.
Comments: No progress during 2017.

High Elves
System: KoW
Status: Mostly painted
Comments: Three more units complete in 2017 only about 4 more to go.

Undead
System: KoW
Status: Mostly painted
Comments: Most of my 2017 progress was additions to my undead army. Those January 2017 purchases have set me back a bit on the road to completion though.

Ogres
System: KoW
Status: 40% done
Comments: No progress or purchases during 2017.

Blood Angels
System: Warhammer 40K
Status: Mostly finished.
Comments: Over 2500 points + options available for use. Gathering dust.

DreadBall Teams
System: DreadBall
Status: 8 teams painted out of 12
Comments: Late 2017 saw renewed interest in the game and work re-commenced but too late to score any painted models for 2017.

Dead Zone
System: Dead Zone
Status: 1 faction starter done
Comments: No progress during 2017 but a handful of models bought to flesh out factions.

SWAT teams and Criminals
System: Officer Down!
Status: Completed (well almost).
Comments: 4 more miniatures painted but a dozen or so bought at salute.
 




The Walking Dead
System: All Out War
Status: New project for 2017 - about 50% painted.
Comments: A surprise addition to the list - with a bit of concentration I could get them all completed fairly quickly.
 
RPG miniatures
System: D&D etc
Status: Lots painted - lots still to do.
Comments: No progress during 2017.

10/15mm Scale Projects

High Elves, Undead, Dark Elves, Mongols, Later Muslim Indian, Later Achmeneid Persian
Systems: DBA, HOTT etc
Status: No progress during 2017.

2017 and all that

As another January rolls around it is time to take stock and look back over the previous year's painting progress.

So how was 2017 for me? Well for personal reasons it was a year I would not care to repeat. One day I will look back at 2017, laugh nervously and then change the subject.

This had an inevitable effect on my painting and my output was way down on where I had hoped it would be. I also completely shelved my planned human KoW army as I was in no state to undertake a project of that scale. In spite of all this I did still manage to complete 149 miniatures (using my patented 28mmEQ method) which wasn't bad but was way less than the number of miniatures I bought.

2017 was a FAIL - good riddance to 2017.

This year will be better ... if only because belt tightening will mean that I won't be spending much on miniatures this year.

I'm alright noooow

I am making some slow efforts to clear some items which have been hanging around partly done for a while. I sometimes find this quite a drag as items often end up partly finished because I have either lost enthusiasm for them or I no longer have any clear plans to use them. I've just completed the second batch of Tehnolog Werewolves which I started back in the summer. These ended up partly finished as I couldn't get them completed in time for the KoW campaign day and the largely werewolf based army I took to that even had its posterior kicked repeatedly resulting in me putting the army back into storage. I now have 4 hordes of werewolves painted up which is some serious overkill. If I'm honest I only bought this second pack as they were dirt cheap and with postage being the main cost adding a second made the deal look better.

I'm now trying to work on the Tehnolog 54mmm undead knights which I got at the same time to use as wights in my KoW army. Again this is more of a case of grinding through them as I have lost my enthusiasm for the miniatures as bit. I'm sure they will look great once they are done.

The green and the mean

And as usual October brings the Clash of Kings, and as per usual I decided to add something new to my army at the last minute. This time I decided I wanted to take the full complement of 3 war trombones with me and also the goblin living legend, Grogger Split-Tooth, from the Edge of the Abyss book. There is no official miniature for Grogger so I chose to paint up a Kevin Adams goblin warlord that I had to hand.

Both new additions did pretty well in the tournament, shame about the general!

Of course simply painting up two new items wasn't enough so I also went round and improved the basing on my entire goblin army because it seemed like a good idea at the time. My orcs and goblins suffer from being the first armies that I collected and the basing style could be described as dated (if you were being kind). To improve things I added clumps of a contrasting  dark green flock to the bases and washed all the flock with diluted PVA to blend in the colours. Once everything was dry I then added grass tufts and bushes to break up the plainer areas. Then end result makes them look a lot better then they did. The basing is still not fantastic but it never will be unless I completely re-base everything and that is not going to happen.

Dead Fast part 6

End of Day 9 (1 day remaining)
And here they are in all their glory (gory?). Yesterday was a busy day but I am now ready for tomorrow's event. Overall I am pretty pleased with how these have turned out. There are inevitable compromises when speed painting but time was limited and if I had spent any more time on them then I would not have been ready for the event.

 As well as basing all this lot I also got in my first game of TWD last night. I lost to Daniel but I now have a bit of a better grasp of how the game plays. Saturday is going to be tough playing against people with a lot more experience than me but it should be a laugh. By Sunday's survival day I should be in the swing of things.

That's it for now but I still have some more wave 2 miniatures to paint up and I think I've got the bug so I might pick up some more at the weekend. I'm not sure when I'll get round to painting them though as the Clash of Kings is in two weeks time and I will probably want to add something to my goblin army for that.

And of course that's another 26 to add to my painted pile for the year.

Dead Fast part 5

End of Day 9 (2 days remaining)
The ongoing progress of time is merciless. It was always going to be a tough ask to get everything I wanted painted up for the events so I have had to switch focus on to getting what need painted up instead. In practical terms this means I won't get the last 5 survivors done so I have to hope I can put together a decent enough gang from the ones I have done.

The good news is that I finished painting the batch of 7 survivors that I had started work on.

 And the walkers too.

So this just leaves me with the task of learning the game and getting the miniatures based. As you can see from the shots above I have made a start on the basing. I am planning on doing something a little different from my usual grey gravel urban basing. I am hoping to key the bases in with my urban boards and match the colours and styles on there. Below are the first two tests of my new scheme. In the photo the look a bit rubbish but in real life with less magnification and without the start lighting they look okay to me. Before I set off on Friday I need to find time to roll this out to the remaining 23 miniatures

And that might have been easy ... but I still need to learn the game, play the game and pick my forces for Saturday and Sunday. Eeep, I'm not out of the woods yet.

And before I go I would like to do a little shout out to the Talking All Out War folks.  Your podcasts kept me going last night when I began to flag, nice work chaps.

Dead Fast part 4

End of Day 7 (4 days remaining)

I had hoped to do a load of work on these over the weekend but other commitments got in the way so the pressure is now on as this won't be a clear week either. Fortunately for me last night was productive and I managed to make a load of progress. 7 more of the survivors are now base coated, washed and in various stages of highlights.

The walkers are a little further behind with just base coat and wash at this stage.

Time is running short so I might have to limit my ambitions a little. Ideally I'd like to get all of the above finished and the remaining 5 survivors as well. I still need to leave time for basing as I had hoped to do something a little different from my usual technique. I may have to forget about the extra scenery (and the last 6 walkers) as I really can't see myself having enough time to get everything finished. Lets hope that tonight is another productive evening.

Dead Fast part 3

End of Day 3 (7 days remaining)


Last night was another full on painting session and the fruits of my labours are the first finished miniatures of the project. Well, I say finished but they aren't based yet. I'm holding off on the basing for now but it is on the to do list.

With TWD being a skirmish game it means that the models are going to be handled quite a lot so I made the decision to protect the paint jobs with a layer of satin varnish. I've noticed that once varnished the highlights usually seem a little dulled so I tried to highlight to a slightly lighter colour than I would usually to preserve the contrast.

And the walkers, I made a bit of mistake here - I applied Blood For the Blood God (gloss translucent red) before applying the varnish which meant it was no longer glossy afterwards. I ended up doing a second layer of BFTBG over the top and whist now glossy again some of the bloody bits are darker than I would have liked them to be. I'll know for the next lot anyway.

I have also made a start on the second batch of walkers from the starter set. For this batch I have gone for a more grey flesh tone. I have mixed different combinations of Russ Grey, Rotting Flesh and Cadian Feshtone.The colours haven't really come out very well in this photo but hopefully the different blends will be easier to see once I have them base coated and washed.

Wave 2 arrives
The postman brought me a whole pile of goodies yesterday. My band of 6 survivors has now been joined by 12 more and the walker count has gone up by 6. If possible I would like to get all of these done for the event but I'm not sure if I can manage that. I will prioritise the survivors that I think I might use in my group and see what I can complete in the time remaining. I now have plenty of choice for my group and I really need to start thinking of what I want to take - especially as I need to chose one model to represent me for the Survival Day. I need to build a custom character as myself and submit it by end of Sunday. I have some rules to read!

I think Tyresse will be painting priority number 1 as he looks like he is a pretty awesome character I think I should also prioritise a marksman and a runner as well. other than that I think I will be picking models to paint by following the rule of cool.

I think I need to work on my posture when I am painting. I ended up having to resort to using my foam roller a couple of times last night to sort my back out. My problem is that I have a tremor so I hunch over the model to try and brace my arms and that isn't very good for my upper back. You would have thought that after so many years of painting I would have learned by now.